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Monday, March 17, 2014

This A-list triple threat (actress, singer, dancer) and Oscar winner who made her best films with another A-list triple threat repeatedly claimed in her memoirs that she never touched a drop of alcohol because of her religious views. Ask anyone who worked with her and they would tell you she could drink anybody under the table. Her drinking only got worse after her mother/manager died and she decided to go to the Mayo Clinic to detox.

Ginger Rogers is the correct answer. I read her autobiography, in which she claimed she divorced all four of her husbands because they drank, while she never touched anything stronger than an ice-cream soda.

It was one of the few autobiographies I've read in which I liked the person less after I'd finished the book.

@Nutty_Flavor - That's very interesting. Usually with autobiographies, one ends up learning something that makes you like them more, but to dislike? I'm intrigued. May I ask what it was about her or is it too long to write? I'm super curious.

Ginger Rogers, very talented, but complete hypocrite...she also slept her way through Hollywood...her & Lucy didn't get along because when they were young they were both showgirls, but Ginger turned in the a Christian Repulican stereotype later

EDIT: Yes, I know Ginger became the dancing version of Victoria Jackson. I still watch her movies, because...Ginger Rogers. Like I still listen to Michael Jackson music. I am not a saint. My biography will so state.

Things went wrong around her - Fred sabotaged her feather costume! Director Mark Sandrich hated her and shot her at bad angles! Husband #1 (the hot young Lew Ayres) was never home! Husbands #2, #3, #4 drank and were otherwise inadequate! Only her darling mother could be trusted!

I read a lot of biographies and autobiographies, and one of the reasons is I like to hear about successful people's screw-ups and failings and how they learned from them. George Washington biographies are my favorite - that guy was a nobody from nowhere who messed up time and time again, but needless to say, things turned out OK at the end. Martin Luther King biographies are great too - another man with serious human flaws who managed to learn from his mistakes and rise above.

Ginger Rogers' book didn't give me that. It was basically a booklong self justification. It was like being stuck with a bore at a party.

If anyone wants to read books that make you like someone less after reading, please read Pat Benetar (loved her before I read it) and Bobby Blotzer. I wanted to throw both books off a bridge while screaming how much of a self absorbed asshole they were.

@Nutty - Wow. That's very interesting!! I love autobiographies too and your assessment is correct. The first autobiography I ever read was Jackie Robinson's - 4th grade - had no idea who Jackie Robinson was...thought it was a woman (we had to choose the books from a list), but it was such a pleasant surprise, from that point on, I love reading autobiographies. Thanks for sharing!

I loved Ginger's autobiography despite our political and religious views being exactly the opposite - I think I just appreciated that she was willing to go personal with anecdotes both happy and sad (even if she spun them), the way it was written (pretty engaging) and her feminist story (despite her conservativism, the woman did have a very pro-womens'-rights sentiment and wasn't always diplomatic and timid about it). But she does resort to religion a lot and therefore there's some holier-than-thou thought.

An attorney I used to work for knew someone at CBS who said Valerie was the biggest bitch. She always comes across so likable in interviews IMO. This was back during One Day At A Time, so who knows now?

I read a lot of bios. People I didn't like after include Steve McQueen and Peter Lawford. Lawford was pathetic. Dean Martin and Johnny Carson were unknowable even after hundreds of pages about them. But also drunks and jerks with moments of charm when they made the effort. Sinatra a drunken violent vain lunatic. But you could actually say that about many if not most of them. Shocking really.

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